There’s been a lot going on over here at Pick Manor, so I wanted to post a quick update about our crazy goings-on.

Yesterday was our 4th anniversary. This is the first time we’ve spent it at home, so it was nice to take a late night walk through Newcastle. We ate at El Torero for Spanish tapas. It’s been ages since we were there, so it was that much more pleasurable to have a nice dinner for a special event. We even drank a pitcher of sangria. Yum! All in all a very romantic evening to celebrate four years of wedded bliss.

In the spirit of our anniversary, our yearly Florida holiday starts tomorrow! We’ll be doing the regular holiday-type things for the last two weeks of September like visiting with my parents, celebrating my birthday, enjoying the beach (we want to get bikes this time!), hanging out at Disney, and doing the oh-so important American things like drinking Slurpees, driving on wide roads with a distinct lack of roundabouts, and buying DVDs at Target while sipping on a pumpkin spice latte.

I get to swim in a big, outdoor pool again. Hooray!

Jake has the cat/house sitter to keep him company while we’re gone. I always feel bad leaving him, and I do miss him when we’re in bed at the hotel without a fat ginger cat snuggling up between us. At least I know he’s well taken care of at home.

When we get back from holiday, we very well may be planning for a move. Steve was suddenly let go from his new job (after they told him over and over how he didn’t need to worry about his probation and it was perfectly fine.) He’s applied for lots of jobs that are in other parts of England (not America or Canada yet) so we very well may be exploring the rest of the country for a new place to live.

If we are going to be moving, I’ll have to finish up three sections of my Teaching Assistant course in order to get a Support in Learning at Schools award for getting at least half way through the curriculum. It’s kind of a bummer, but I see this as a big opportunity for me to look for work somewhere else.

As Steve said, we’ve kind of exhausted our job prospects in the North East.

I stopped volunteering up at the Primary School too. I enjoyed working up there last term, but now that school’s started with new students and a new teacher, I was doing more physical work (cutting paper, putting stickers on workbooks, etc.) and no sitting down with a group and helping with assignments. Being on my feet like that was killing my back. We had no extra chairs in that classroom, and even when I’d try to go to the library to work, I’d be kicked out because a class was going to use it. Oh well, we are staying here in October, I can always look for another school to go to – one with a place to sit down.

With the writing – I’ve been submitting and getting rejections, but the rejections are much nicer lately, so that’s a good thing. I wrote a New Adult thriller that I’m trying to get represented.

In the meantime, I’ve started this book project that I fought with a lot last year around this time. I finally just started somewhere and got in a few NaNoWriMo-type sprints. Those 1700 word sprints are such an easy way for me to stay on track, no matter what the month or project. Anyway, I’m just going to run with the silly thing and aim for a higher word count.

Anyway, that’s what’s been going on in September. In October, I’ll be working on homework, a possible move, and the new YA light fantasy book so I can aim to get 20k words in before starting NaNo in November.

Right now I have to finish my edits for my CP partner before I get my suitcase packed. I have to charge up my Kindles. I’ve acquired lots of contemporary New Adult romances, just to change it up a little. I love that a lot of them are set in Florida, like all of my books are.

Of course, I always have my Princess Diaries books to keep me entertained. I never get tired of those.